Learn to Write Badly - Billig, Michael

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Résumé :
Written in a clear, humorous and entertaining style, this looks at why today's social scientists are writing so poorly. Michael Billig identifies the linguistic features of poor social scientific writing, as well as examining the impact of the current competitive 'capitalist' culture to pinpoint exactly what is going wrong with the way that social scientists write.

Biographie:
Michael Billig has been Professor of Social Sciences at Loughborough University for more than 25 years. In 2011 he received the Distinguished Contribution to Social Psychology Award from the Social Section of the British Psychological Society. He is the author of Freudian Repression (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and Arguing and Thinking (Cambridge University Press, 1987, 1996).

Sommaire:
1. Introduction; 2. Mass publication and academic life; 3. Learning to write badly; 4. Jargon, nouns and acronyms; 5. Turning people into things; 6. How to avoid saying who did it; 7. Some sociological things: governmentality, cosmopolitanization and conversation analysis; 8. Experimental social psychology: concealing and exaggerating; 9. Conclusion and recommendations.

'Michael Billig makes important and novel arguments about the state of writing - and therefore the state of thinking - in the social sciences. This book presents detailed critiques of writings by a wide range of social scientists. Billig uses vivid examples to demonstrate the conditions in which bad writing is nurtured and to show its wider significance for academia and beyond. This is a highly entertaining read which had me laughing out loud at times.' Christine Griffin, University of Bath 'A wonderful look at the academic world and the kind of writing it encourages. I especially enjoyed the chapters on mass publication, sociology, and experimental social psychology.' Tom Scheff, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Santa Barbara 'If you are put off by the highly specialized, closed and boring technical prose that increasingly characterizes a good deal of contemporary social science, then Michael Billig shares your annoyance! A wise, informed and well-written account, showing just why so many social scientists write badly.' John Van Maanen, Erwin H. Schell Professor of Organization Studies, MIT Sloan School of Management 'Once again, Michael Billig has succeeded in challenging one of the characteristics of scholars' writing in the social sciences which is usually taken for granted: the use of too much abstract jargon which mystifies and obfuscates the interpretation, reflection and explanation of our findings. In his brilliant, typically humorous but also cynical and accurate analysis of scholars' narcissism, the author points to alternative ways of combining complex research with fundamental and necessary scholarly standards - while simultaneously making our work accessible to a broader public, in the spirit of true critical science.' Ruth Wodak, Distinguished Professor and Chair in Discourse Studies, Lancaster University 'A concerted articulation of the Stratfordian position.' Literary Review 'The Lynne Truss of the academic writing world ... [Billig] reminds us all that when we put pen to paper we are supposed to be explaining things not hiding them ... We should all read it and insist that our students do so as well.' Times Higher Education